What had been expected and so anticipated for two weeks became official Friday afternoon when college basketball legend Bob Knight was named the new Red Raider head men's basketball coach.

Tech made things official when Knight inked a contract Friday for five years with a $250,000 base salary. With annual deferred payments and outside income, Knight will earn at least $900,000 annually, which makes him one of the higher-paid coaches in the Big 12 Conference.

And then the party began.

Texas Tech senior Josh Bacon holds up a sign in support of new Red Raider's basketball coach Bobby Knight on Friday at United Spirit Arena.

A-J Photo/Robin Cornett

A raucous crowd estimated at 7,500 considerably more than showed up for most Tech men's home games last season was at United Spirit Arena to welcome Knight.

It started with Knight, his wife, Karen, Tech President David Schmidly and athletic director Gerald Myers walking up to a podium to a welcome worthy of any rock star. While Bob Knight remained stoic, Karen Knight fought back tears as the crowd cheered her husband of 10 years.

They chanted ''Bobby, Bobby,'' and then showered Myers with a huge ovation when he took the microphone. Knight himself stood and respectfully clapped for his friend of 30 years as Myers repeatedly thrust the ''Guns Up'' salute.

And the crowd reached a deafening roar when the ''General'' himself flawlessly executed a ''Guns Up'' salute and then donned a red sweater vest with a Texas Tech logo. Knight was dubbed ''General'' during his early coaching days at Army.

''This is, without question, the most comfortable red sweater I've had on in six years,'' Knight quipped, alluding to the red sweaters he wore during the past several years of his 29-year stint at Indiana.

For nearly an hour, the former Hoosier head coach held court. He spoke to his new flock of adoring fans in a presentation that was part standup comedy routine, part campaign speech and all designed to give the fans the chance to get to know the warm side of the highly successful but often controversial coach.

Knight said all the things the crowd came to hear, telling the students who were on hand that he wanted them to help Tech's home crowd to become the very best basketball fans in the world. He showed his sarcasm on every opportunity available, even when talking about how he wanted his new players to work hard, listen well and pay attention.

''I'm not right all the time, but when he comes to this game I'm right most of the time,'' he said.

Knight reiterated his admiration for Tech women's coach Marsha Sharp and her program, while also thrusting some attention toward his wife, a former high school coach whose teams won three Oklahoma state championships.

''Two of the coaches in the country that I respect the most are my wife and Marsha Sharp,'' Knight said. ''I hope eventually I'll be able to do some things for Marsha, because she's going to do a lot more for me in the beginning than I can do for her.''

Although it was unexpected even to her, Karen Knight got her chance to speak, and she too seemed to win the crowd over. She spoke of her husband's ''passion for living,'' and talked about how at home she felt in West Texas.

The rest of the time was filled with a well-orchestrated, fan-friendly news conference that allowed Knight to avoid most of the controversial issues that peppered his career at Indiana.

Whenever a reporter began to pose a question regarding Knight's past or the reasons behind his ouster at IU, the crowd chimed in with boos loud enough to drown out the rest of the question. One question that did slip through the rowdy crew of impromptu censors was about the ''pattern of unacceptable'' behavior'' that finally led to Knight's dismissal from Indiana University in September.

''I'm not sure what the pattern of unacceptable behavior was, except that I was told about four things that happened three years, eight years, 11 years and 22 years prior to that,'' Knight said. ''I think that's kind of a funny pattern over 22 years.''

In response to one reporter's repeated questions about his behavioral problems, Knight referred to a favorite saying of his wife's, dead-panning ''If the horse is dead, get off of it.''

Knight replaces James Dickey, who was fired March 9 after 10 seasons. The Red Raiders went 9-19 in 2000-2001 and were just 47-66 over the past four seasons.

The 60-year-old Knight is the 12th coach in the history of the Tech men's program, and without a doubt the most recognizable. He spent 29 seasons at Indiana and six at Army, winning 763 games, 11 Big Ten championships, three national titles and an Olympic gold medal.

Knight arrives at Tech with the fifth-most coaching victories in the history of NCAA Division I men's basketball. He needs 117 victories to move past former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith for first place on the list.

''He is quite simply one of the best coaches who has ever been involved with the game of basketball,'' said Myers, who befriended Knight 30 years ago when both men were new head coaches at the start of their careers.

''There aren't many people at all who can equal him in terms of his accomplishments both as a coach and as an educator. There's not anybody whose credentials compare to his in the game today,'' Myers said.

Nor can many college coaches compare to Knight in two other areas: a 98 percent graduation rate among players who completed their eligibility under Knight and the fact that his program was never accused of violating NCAA rules.

''Coach Knight wins basketball games, and he does it the right way,'' Schmidly said. ''Winning is important, but not as important as educating student athletes and running a clean program. His reputation in those two areas is impeccable.''

As strong as those reputations and his on-court achievements are, Knight's career has also been marred by his well-documented temper and episodes of violent behavior.

Two of the more publicized incidents finally led to Knight's downfall at Indiana last spring and fall.

Last March, former Hoosier player Neil Reed told CNN-Sports Illustrated that Knight had grabbed him by the neck during a practice in 1997. A videotape later surfaced showing Knight grabbing Reed's neck.

After an investigation, IU President Myles Brand suspended Knight for three games, fined him $30,000, required a public apology and placed Knight under a ''zero-tolerance'' behavior policy.

In September, Knight was involved in an incident with a student at Assembly Hall, the Hoosier basketball home. The student greeted Knight by asking, ''Hey, Knight. What's up?'' The student alleged that Knight grabbed him by the arm and lectured him on manners.

Knight said there was a confrontation but denied any physical contact and denied that he cursed at the student.

Despite that denial, Brand fired Knight several days later.

Like Knight, Schmidly was more interested in the future Friday than in Knight's checkered past.

''Some people are intent on revisiting the past, but I believe at some point you've got to turn your eyes to the future,'' Schmidly said. ''I think (Friday) proves that the people at Texas Tech and West Texas are ready to give Bob Knight a chance to look into the future.

''I don't know what happened at Indiana, and frankly I don't care about it. What I do care about is what can happen at Texas Tech in the future, and by hiring coach Knight, I think we've taken a very big step toward making that future very bright for our basketball program.''

Knight said again Friday that he had been contacted by several other schools both before and after Tech showed an interest. Rhode Island and Nevada-Las Vegas reportedly made the most serious overtures, and Knight's name was also linked at openings or potential openings at Massachusetts, Clemson and Florida State.

But Tech won the war for Knight's services, mostly because of his longtime friendship with Myers.

On Friday, however, Knight also tipped his hat to anybody who was there to celebrate his arrival.

''What you folks have, the students, and the fans and the faculty and everybody in this community, you've got a great, great university, and I'm really happy to be a small part of that,'' Knight said.

Randy Rosetta can be contacted at 766-8743 or rrosetta@lubbockonline.com